Contents
Profile
Species: cabazai
Range: Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian, 75-65 MYA) of Argentina
Size estimate: 15-17 ft length, 600-700 lbs
Discovery: Fernando Novas, 2008
Classification: dinosauria, saurischia, theropoda, maniraptora, dromeosauridae
True to Life?
Since no one has ever seen a living dinosaur, and the missing pieces of the fossil record withhold important clues to their appearance, no artistic representation of a dinosaur ever gets it 100% right. On top of that, new discoveries can change our ideas of extinct creatures drastically. So, how close does this sculpture come to what we know of the original animal?
- The skinny profile of this sculpture somewhat matches the long, pointy snout of Austroraptor’s skull.
- Austroraptor features the shortest arms of any known dromaeosaur. However, they are about average in length compared to other carnivorous dinosaurs. No one knows why its arms grew so short.
- Several discoveries of well-preserved small dromaeosaurs’ skin and quill knobs on the ulnae (forearm bones—the big ones with the elbow bumps) of larger ones make a feathery covering for any ‘raptor the most likely case. Even though we have no fossils of Austroraptor’s skin, that pattern means it probably bore feathers. However, we know nothing about the size or shape of its plumage, so the tail fan, head plumes, and crest of feathers on its back are completely speculative.
- Nobody knows if the reduction of the arms’ size would have changed its plumage there, but we have retained the arrangement known from other dromaeosaurs and from birds for a few reasons. For one, some explanations of why larger ‘raptors kept fan-like feathers on their arms suggest they played a role in showing off. With smaller arms, Austroraptor may have grown proportionately larger feathers there to compensate. This also explains why we added those speculative feathers on the head and back, and why we exaggerated the size of this sculpture’s tail fan. This way, our Austroraptor can still show off as impressively as its cousins with longer arms.
- As of 2021, Austroraptor is the fourth largest dromaeosaur known. We have only one specimen, so we can’t tell what the size range of its species would be. Did we find a smaller individual, or a real giant? This is a common problem with fossil species, especially the rarer ones.
- As with nearly every other animal in the park, we had to guess at the color of this animal. The blue color scheme is intended to reflect its hypothetical preference for fishing and shoreline environments, and to contrast with the warm oranges and browns of the Achillobator south of the path.
- Behind the scenes: When originally installed in the Park, this sculpture and the Achillobator on the opposite side of the path both represented oversized Velociraptors. When it came time to repaint them, they were given the same color scheme as Utahraptor and considered as such in Park maps and programming. In 2018, they were moved to their present positions in order to accommodate the Spinosaurus sculpture just to the south. They were slightly damaged by the move, but this allowed us to refurbish them according to new information and convert them and the Utahraptor on the hill west of the river into representations of three of the four giant ‘raptors currently known. The fourth is, of course, Utahraptor.
- Behind the scenes: Since they flank the bridge, we consider them like gargoylean guardians of the northwestern end of the park, sort of like the lions or dogs flanking the gates of Chinese and Japanese shrines. Appropriately, their tonally opposite color schemes echo the balance-of-opposites motifs found on those Chinese guardian lion statues.
- Behind the scenes: The size of Austroraptor’s arms required us to modify this sculpture more than the other giant raptor conversions. Cutting through the concrete and steel construction proved no easy task, but sculptor Josh Cotton managed to hide the stumps’ old joints to create realistic-looking new arms over them. We like to joke about this sculpture in reference to the 1994 film Maverick: this Austroraptor passed the “Indian Bravery Test,” since we cut off both its arms, but it never screamed!